Tour/Giveaway Shattered Minds

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She can uncover the truth, if she defeats her demons

Ex-neuroscientist Carina struggles with a drug problem, her conscience, and urges to kill. She satisfies her cravings in dreams, fuelled by the addictive drug ‘Zeal’. Now she’s heading for self-destruction – until she has a vision of a dead girl.

Sudice Inc. damaged Carina when she worked on their sinister brain-mapping project, causing her violent compulsions. And this girl was a similar experiment. When Carina realizes the vision was planted by her old colleague Mark, desperate for help to expose the company, she knows he’s probably dead. Her only hope is to unmask her nemesis – or she’s next.

To unlock the secrets Mark hid in her mind, she’ll need a group of specialist hackers. Dax is one of them, a doctor who can help Carina fight her addictions. If she holds on to her humanity, they might even have a future together. But first she must destroy her adversary – before it changes us and our society, forever.

As a writer, I feel reading is a vital part of my job. If I come across an author who says something like ‘I don’t have time to read,’ I must admit I side-eye them pretty hard. So far this year I’ve read about 40 books and links to all the books I’ve read can be found via my Goodreads challenge: Goodreads

I tend to bounce around loads of different genres, even though I (so far) mostly write SFF. Here’s my top 10!

Duke of Shadows – Meredith Duran. I’ve been reading more romance lately, and this historical offering takes a sharp look at colonialism in India. Plus the romance is amazing and near the end there is a heist!

Ghost Talkers – Mary Robinette Kowal. A book set in WWI about a coalition of mediums—many women—who are mediums that can talk to recently killed soldiers to get intel. Loved the characters and I learned more about WWI as well.

Tiny Pretty Things– Dhonielle Clayton & Sona Charaipotra. A stark look at the cutthroat world of ballet. Lots of unlikeable characters that you empathize with anyway. Trigger warning for eating disorders and bullying.

Nasty Women – edited by 404 Ink (bias note: I have an essay in this). A collection of feminist essays from a wide range of women from around the world. Sparked, of course, by Trump calling Clinton a nasty woman in one of the debates.

Surviving AI – Calum Chace. A great nonfiction book about the history of artificial intelligence and where we might go from here. Research for an upcoming book!

The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas. The book needs little introduction as it has stormed the NYT bestseller list. Deserves every one of its eight starred reviews!

A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal – Meredith Duran. Another excellent historical romance. This one is a mashup of My Fair Lady and Pretty Woman. A woman finds out she’s a long lost twin to a rich family but has to act the part to claim her fortune back with the help of a rakish, sexy (of course) dude. So fun!

Parable of the Talents – Octavia Butler. The follow up to Parable of the Sower. A dystopia that’s chillingly possible. There’s a reality TV star president who promises to ‘make America great again’ for example, and this was written in the 1990s. It also looks at religious fundamentalism and the US trying to claw itself back from the brink of darkness, with mixed results.

The Space Between the Stars – Anne Corlett. Anne and I share a publisher, though I haven’t met her yet, and our editor described this as “cosy apocalypse” which works. It’s a very personal story set against the epic backdrop of space. Most of humanity has been wiped out by plague, and the protagonist and a ragtag group of survivors are trying to get back to Earth and decide what to make of this brave new world.

Assassin’s Fate – Robin Hobb. My favourite book of the year. Robin Hobb has been my favourite author for thirteen years, and this book is a masterpiece, culimating over twenty years of work in this year. If you haven’t read her yet, start with Assassin’s Apprentice and enjoy the journey!

It was really hard to limit it to only 10, as I’ve enjoyed pretty much every book I’ve read this year (I tend to abandon a book within fifty pages if I’m not feeling it). What have some of your favourite reads this year been?

Praise for FALSE HEARTS

“Riveting.” ―F. Paul Wilson, New York Times bestselling author

“A multilayered, suspenseful thriller, False Hearts explores themes of identity and power in a breakneck plot that keeps the pages turning.” ―Ilana C. Myer, author of Last Song Before Night

“An ingenious premise, and Laura Lam executes it flawlessly. Gritty and wise, your own pulse will be racing as you get caught up in this exciting tale.” ―Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Red Planet Blues

“A taut futuristic thriller, set in a San Francisco where everybody is beautiful... and nobody is exceptional. Two unusual sisters are caught in a war for control of a society that quietly suffocates its outsiders, rebels, and the damaged. Taema and Tila are all three, and their strange past and unique bond make False Hearts a difficult book to put down.” ―A. M. Dellamonica, author of Child of a Hidden Sea

Laura Lam was born in the late eighties and raised near San Francisco, California, by two former Haight-Ashbury hippies. Both of them encouraged her to finger-paint to her heart’s desire, colour outside the lines, and consider the library a second home. This led to an overabundance of daydreams.

After studying literature and creative writing at university, she relocated to Scotland to be with her husband, a boy she met online when they were teenagers and he insulted her taste in books and she insulted his right back. She almost blocked him but is glad she didn’t. She is now a dual citizen, but at times she misses the sunshine.

While working a variety of jobs from filing and photocopying endlessly at a law firm to library assistant to corporate librarian, she began writing in earnest. Her first book, Pantomime, the first book in the Micah Grey series, was released in 2013, which was a Scottish Book Trust Teen Book of the Month, won the Bisexual Book Award, was listed a Top Ten Title for the American Library Association List, and was nominated for several other awards. Robin Hobb says “Pantomime by Laura Lam took me into a detailed and exotic world, peopled by characters that I’d love to be friends with . . . and some I’d never want to cross paths with.” The sequel, Shadowplay, followed in 2014, as well as several the Vestigial Tales, self-published short stories and novellas set in the same world. The third book in the series, Masquerade, will follow in 2017.

Her newest book is False Hearts, a near-future thriller released in June 2016 by Tor/Macmillan and in three other languages. Peter F. Hamilton calls False Hearts “a strong debut from someone who’s clearly got what it takes.” Another thriller, Shattered Minds, will be released in 2017.

She is still hiding from sunshine in Scotland and writing more stories.